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  • Profile - With a varied profile ranging from customer service, data management, business intelligence, telecom expense management and business process re-engineering, handling large team in sales, and retention, to leading competency development for a fairly large workforce – I love exploring new possibilities and taking on new challenges. ?

    The current role sees me working extensively in the arena of competency development, capability building, upskilling and reinforcing knowledge, skills and attitude for over 6 years now – what comes to the table is a unique blend of skills that has a proven track record of adding value to your organization.

The Corporate Story

(Oct 2013- Present) Sr. Manager Learning and Development

Joined Tata Capital Financial services in Oct ’13 (from being a service provider since Jan ’12 - through Eka Academy) as a  Learning and Development Manager for the Travel, Cards and Forex teams. Promoted to handle L&D nationwide for the Retail businesses as Senior Manager Learning and Development. (Consumer Finance and Advisory Business, Cards, wealth management and Rural finance).

• Tata group follows the Malcolm Baldridge model of excellence – and I am a Silver Assessor in the Tata Business Excellence Model.
• The L&D team has won several awards and recognition in the last couple of years including the TISS Leap Vault award for L&D team of the year (2017), Best blended learning program by CLO (TISS LeapValut 2017), Golden Peacock National Training award (2016), TISS LeapVault award for best induction program (2015), Best sales manager training program (2015)

Key Responsibilities : Strategizing and planning effective use of training budgets, Competency gap identification, validation and selection of interventions to cover the gaps effectively, Liaising with internal stake holders, business heads and other HR functions to ensure the right intervention is provided to the right team / individual, Identifying vendors, execution of training programs, team management, Internal trainers rewards and recognition, design of key training programs, e-learning and effective implementation, competency gap closure, ROI measurement and reporting key metrices to business partners, content curation and pan India training deployement. 

(Jan 2012 - Oct 2013) Founding Partner, Director and CEO

A company I co-founded along with Capt. Muthukrishnan Iyyappan, currently a market leader in the learning and development space – with operations in India and Hungary.

From heading the outbound trainings wing to running the business for the India operations, I have seen the business move from a 3 member team in a tiny attic to a full fledged 20+ member team with a full size office to call our own.

Some of the key clients we have dealt with include Tata Capital, e-nxt, wockhardt, Ratnakar Bank, Mahindra and Mahindra and many more.  

(Apr 2009-Jan 2012) Team Leader (Outbound Retention), Team Leader (Business Retention)
(Oct 2005 - Jul 2008) Team Coach (MIS), Advisor (Multiskill)

A company I share many memories from, being my first "actual" job, and getting promoted thrice (once laterally) the experiences I have gained here are immense.

Advisor (Multiskill)
Started my career as a call taking agent with 3 Global Services for postpay – after winning the quality guru and floor stack ranking, I was moved to a multiskill queue – handling queries from customers about billing, collections as well as technical calls. Soon I designed a tool called easy notes to save time spent on tagging notes after calls – which was greatly appreciated - and mandated across the shop floor to reduce wrap time. 

Promoted as a Team Coach heading MIS for sales and Retentions, Generating reports and automating dashboards for daily decisions handled by the senior management. I’ve designed online taggers to analyze the type of queries being handled as well as their spread.

Rejoined 3, in 2009 to handle a core team of retention advisors – handling customer queries end to end and ensuring that upgrades are processed on devices and price plans that are most profitable to the company. I was instrumental in introducing and driving cross-sells, where an addon product like phone insurance is sold to the customer – while maintaining exemplary customer centricity.

I’ve was honoured to receive the the best team, and best team leader award during the year 2011.

Have received a 3 Dream Team Award – for exceptional team management, for the period from Oct ‘2009 thro Mar ‘2010 – on both levels – for exceptional customer service to both internal and external customers of 3 global services – a Hutchison Whampoa Group company..

Business Retention (Dec ’09 – Mar’10)
Responsible for setting up and bringing to speed a team for business retention, 3’s first attempt to outsource support and retention for business customers – outside the UK.

The profile involved extensive involvement with business customers of 3, with huge volumes of accounts and ensuring that the best possible plans are worked out for the client.

Outbound Loyalty And Retention (Apr ’09 – Dec’09)
Joined 3 as a Team leader heading a pioneer process – OLAR, retaining customers who are in the last 110 days of a contract with the mobile operator. A huge success – reducing margin dilution and maximizing profits. 

(Jul 2008 - Apr 2009) Deputy Manager (Expense Management)

Worked with Conjoin group (A venture capital company), handling Telecom Expense Management for “Avotus” -(an American firm) – TEM involves reducing the spend on Telecom expenses and managing the purchasing, procuring and managing of telecom products from a single point of contact.

The job role involved, process transition, performance management, rostering, scheduling of client / vendor calls as well as ensuring that aspects involved in MSBA (Managed Services Business Analysis) and analytics are taken care of.
Taggers have been designed and implemented in along with an intranet where bulletin board updates as well announcements are updated by me.

Was responsible for completion of process transition and training from US to India, and was on site in New Jersey for 45 days, and the processes have been transitioned successfully. 

Education

Currently pursuing a masters degree, completed a Bachelors in Software Systems from Bharatiyar university - with a first class result. 

My academic records have consistently been distinction through first class in all evaluations.

© Ashok Karkera (2019)